Dubuque Boy Undergoes Transplant

By ERIK HOGSTROM

A 13-year-old Dubuque boy has received a long-awaited lung transplant.

Nick LeGrand got a new set of lungs in a 13-hour procedure at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston late Monday into Tuesday.

“Things went as good as could be expected,” said Mark LeGrand, Nick’s father.

The teenager’s family is “excited, nervous – all of the above,” Mark LeGrand said. “The next 24 to 72 hours are critical.”

Nick and his mother, Kelly, have been living in Houston, awaiting a transplant, since late December.

The right pair of lungs became available this week.

The transplant procedure began at 8:06 p.m. Monday and concluded by 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Kelly LeGrand phoned with updates throughout the night.

Doctors will keep Nick sedated for up to two days as his body slowly becomes accustomed to the lungs. He will be hospitalized three to six months post transplant.

The procedure was Nick’s second transplant. A rare lung ailment called primary pulmonary hypertension led to his first transplant a decade ago. Doctors had hoped the first transplanted lungs would grow with Nick, but they were compromised by chronic rejection, and his condition gradually worsened.

Primary pulmonary hypertension is a rare lung disorder in which the blood pressure in the pulmonary artery rises far above normal levels for no apparent reason. The pulmonary artery carries oxygen- poor blood from the right ventricle to the lungs, where the blood gains oxygen before flowing back to the heart. The disease increases resistance to blood flowing through the vessels, which strains the heart by causing it to work harder.

Before he left for Houston with his mom, the chronic disease had severely restricted Nick’s quality of life. The boy could no longer attend Eleanor Roosevelt Middle School and needed a motorized scooter for mobility.

Mark LeGrand will join his son and wife soon.

“Hopefully in a couple weeks,” he said.

Originally published by ERIK HOGSTROM TH staff writer/ehogstrom@wcinetcom.

(c) 2008 Telegraph – Herald (Dubuque). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.